Identification of Drought Resistant Vegetation (i-Drive) is a quick, practical, and inexpensive method developed to design a recommendation of reclamation strategy in Hambalang quarry, with main focus on the vegetation resistance to drought stress. The i-Drive steps are (1) preliminary survey, (2) identification of vegetation on the land surfaces of sunken, flat, and convex areas, (3) quantification of nitrogen-fixing bacteria and phosphate-solubilizing bacteria, and soil chemical properties, (4) determination of the vegetation resistance to drought stress, (5) recommendation mapping of the land reclamation strategy. The recommendations on land reclamation strategy using revegetation will accelerate the soil fertility improvement, thus becoming an effective, efficient, and economical, mainly related to an increase in biodiversity. The drought-resistant vegetations are estimated to be varies from the level of the trees, poles, saplings, seedlings, and ground cover. In addition, the development of the alley cropping model between legume trees / shrubs along local nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and phosphate solubilizing bacteria can reduce need for fertilizers to cultivate grasses for potential alternative energy crop. These potentials will certainly attract shareholders and stakeholders, particularly the farmers to raise concerns to revegetate together, thereby contribute to company cost efficiency of the land reclamation.

Today, I-drive team from Diponegoro University is scheduled to depart to Semarang. We discussed the project and fieldwork along our way back home and made several plans about our next moves. It was a wonderful experience. Now, we need to focus on processing the data we took these past couple of weeks and prepare the project report.

Identification of vegetation we have done on reclamation area 2004, 2008, mining site and ex-mining site were used as a basis for determining the drought resistant vegetation. We can determine which vegetation may survive the drought using literature study. Further research is done by drought resistant pot-test on several potential ground vegetation that can be developed as bio-ethanol sources. The drought resistant vegetation’s selection is crucial because those plants do not require intensive...

Sampling process on convex surfaces had to be done extra carefully because it was hard enough to make the climb. The hardest part was on the concave area on ex-mining site because we need to walk in the mud, but it was kind of fun and challenging when we do that. We hope that there are many participants who can enjoy this adventure on this quarry next year.

Mr. Dana Pandiangan reminded us that today we have visitors from the National jury. We set out to the Hambalang quarry at 8 AM and went straight to the ex-mining site on concave area. The soil texture of this area was silty and wet with deep solum mud.

Ex-mining site on convex and flat surfaces have a thin soil layer on top of rocky grounds and are included in sandy clay fraction. So we were troubled trying to set up the ground pegs on several locations because those pegs couldn’t penetrate the rocky layers.

Today, we went to Reclamation area 2008. he diversity on this area is higher, but the density of the vegetation is lower compared to the reclamation area 2004. Even though this conclusion isn’t final, we still need to identify several unrecognized plants on the field and match it up with the determination key and literature database.

Time is the most valuable thing today. We set out from the guesthouse at 8 A.M, and will be arriving in Hambalang Quarry 45 minutes later. We have to finish today’s agenda by 4 P.M, so there’s no time to lose.

There’s something special today. We were visited by the International Jury. We’ve been waiting for this moment, we were staying up all night preparing progress report to be presented in front of them. Read more.

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About the Quarry Life Award

The Quarry Life Award is an international research competition for the promotion and education about biodiversity in quarries. The forth edition of the competition, organized by HeidelbergCement, is currently in progress.